The Art of an Explosion
by BeatriceParadisio
Summary: The town was forgettable, as was the much of the journey that led Deidara to be drinking alone while he waited for his partner. Yet what appeared to be nothing more than a dull night soon turns into an exhibition of an art very different than his usual masterpieces. Short story focused on Deidara.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This was originally going to be a long one-shot but after deciding on some POV changes I decided to make it a short story. T for now, probably M in a few chapters. As always, the typical disclaimer of ownership of characters, universe, etc. And with that said, enjoy!

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**Chapter One**

Izumi stared down at her drink, shutting out the dull buzz of conversation that was only broken by the occasional boisterous laugh or clinking of ice being put in glasses. The small barbeque had little to offer in ways of comfort, but that was to be expected considering how small the town was that she currently found herself in. She was just happy that the restaurant had sake and that the hostess consistently overfilled her cup, helping her to forgive the less luxurious aspects of the tiny village.

Lifting the small cup to her lips, she let the clear liquid sit there for a moment before indiscreetly draining the contents. She had gained a few judging glances from the hostess, but she had stopped caring after her third drink. What did it matter if some small town peasants gave her shocked or disgusted looks? Who were they to judge her? Sure she was young, her round face and smooth skin looking all of its nineteen years, but that didn't mean she didn't deserve to seek solace in the warm embrace of drunkenness.

She gave a nod to the hostess who moved towards her with graceful reluctance. "May I pour your drink?"

Izumi nodded, brushing a strand of her long dark hair from her eyes that had escaped its binding high on her head. The hostess did her best to look neutral as she filled the cup, once more giving her that bit extra that more than likely came more from inexperience of pouring the liquor than anything else. But once again Izumi didn't care so long as it continued.

Looking down at the bar, she let her fingers drift up and down the smooth surface of the cup while her mind traveled to what she had done and what she was about to do. She had come from a small, unimportant clan in the small, relatively unimportant Land of Fangs. She had loved her homeland with its towering cliffs and green valleys, even if there was no formal education for a shinobi outside of what was taught by your clan. Still, she had never envied the powerful ninja from the five Great Nations that would occasionally pass through their land. She had been content with her modest abilities and the modest duties that came with them. But none of that mattered now.

Staring at the clear liquid in her cup, she tried to make out her eyes to see if they looked any different now that she was a murderer. Would they have the cold, hard look that she had often seen on criminals when she was assigned to patrol the daiymo's jail? Or would the dark grey eyes of her clan still sparkle with the vibrancy that came with inexperience and youth?

_You're fucked,_ her mind treacherously told her after ending her search in vain. _They're going to find you._

She tried to push the thought to the back of her mind, ignoring the fear that had followed her ever since she opened that damned scroll. Had she just smothered her curiosity and never learned the forbidden jutsu then she might not have unleashed a power that she didn't understand and couldn't control. Then she wouldn't have killed her comrades while trying to catch nothing more significant than a common thief.

_You shouldn't have run,_ she told herself for what felt like the hundredth time over the past two months. _You should have just admitted to what you did and accepted the punishment for reading the scroll and killing your friends_.

Yet she knew she couldn't go back and change time. She had broken the seal of her clan's forbidden scroll and learned the taboo ninjutsu that had been marked as dangerous for a reason. She was so naïve to think that the power in that scroll was being left untaught due to the senility of the clan elders. If she had just let it be then her team would still be alive and she wouldn't be a rogue ninja drinking alone in some godforsaken town.

"Baka," she muttered to herself before lifting her cup and draining it once more.

The hostess ever attentive to her duties quickly poured her another while nodding to a new arrival to the small building. She glanced over at the doorway half in fear that it might be someone from the Land of Fangs, but it was only a boy who was probably no older than herself. She felt an immediate wave of relief as the hostess ushered the young man to a table next to hers, the partition between them doing little to make their separate evenings private.

He glanced her way, his long blonde hair covering what looked like a damaged forehead protector and most of the left side of his face. Still, she couldn't help but meet the intense look that came from his exposed eye, the bright blue mimicking the shallow waters of the ocean.

She continued to stare after he looked away, watching the way he leaned back in his chair with careless ease, his sleeveless mesh armor masking his stomach that would otherwise be exposed by his loose shirt. There was something naturally confident about him, from his aloof posture, his bare arms crossed over his chest, to the bored frown that pulled on his lips.

_He has to be a shinobi_, she thought as she watched him sip his sake. She had learned early to be wary of strangers with distinctive characteristics since these often ran in rare or powerful bloodlines, and his thick blonde hair and bright blue eyes were nothing if not unique. Yet even if he had dark hair and slightly tanned skin like most people on the continent she would have known he was shinobi simply by the what he was wearing and the firm solidity of his lean build. His muscular arms were not that if a farmer or common laborer but of someone that had trained extensively with taijutsu. His blue eyes though bored also held the sense of superiority common in warriors and shinobi, morphing his young features into something much stronger than the smooth angles of his jaw would suggest.

Leaning back in her chair, she watched to see if he took an interest in her. She doubted that her clan would hire an outside shinobi to track her down, but it wasn't outside the realm of possibilities. Any ninja, therefore, had to be considered a potential enemy until proven otherwise.

_Maybe I should just go back to the inn,_ she thought, glancing up at the strange boy again to find him his eyes on her. A wave of cold dread filled her, her hand gripping her cup tighter as she held his gaze. _Is this how its going to end?_

The thought barely had time to flit through her consciousness before the young man gave her a thin smirk that made his eyes flash a strange mixture of mischievousness and danger. Izumi felt her skin prickle and her breath catch, her free hand moving slowly to the utility belt at her waist. Any thoughts that might have flitted through her head of doing the right thing and accepting her fate quickly left her as he rose and began to move towards. She knew that if this boy was going to try to take her back to the Land of Fangs or kill her for a bounty she at least wouldn't make it easy for him.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Sorry for the delay. The rest of this is finished. I'll post in a few days...and if I don't PM me! I'm in the process of moving and may need some prompting :)

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**Chapter Two**

Deidara had spotted the girl almost immediately upon entering the small barbeque. Unlike most of the locals, she wasn't dressed in laborers' clothes or the soiled rags of farmhands. Instead she wore a neat sleeveless top that did little to hide the mesh armor underneath. And although her loose fitting pants were dusty from traveling, they were in the sort of condition expected of a shinobi that either took pride in their equipment or didn't see much action. He assumed it was the latter as her forehead protector was noticeably missing, making her either a rogue ninja on the run or a kunoichi in the middle of an undercover mission, both of which would bring their own forms of danger and excitement on a regular basis.

No matter what her status was in her villiage or whom her alliances were for, he knew that it was foolish to even bother with her. There was no reason to attract the attention of a spy or a rogue agent, at least not when they didn't have something the Akatsuki wanted. The best thing for him to do would be to keep her in his peripheral vision, but otherwise ignore her and enjoy a rare free evening. Unfortunately, he found his gaze moving back to her after the annoyingly perky hostess walked away.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was assessing the girl based entirely on her appearance. Her small frame and lean build marked her as someone that was likely to fight at some distance. Unless she had some incredibly rare or powerful jutsu, she lacked the thick muscles common to the ninja that used forceful short-range attacks. She didn't seem to be hiding any specialized equipment though, her long dark hair tightly pulled up into a high ponytail on her head, leaving her smooth face unhidden. It made him wonder what her technique was and if she would be someone that could show off his art for more than a minute or two.

Still, as his mind was running through a fake battle based on little more than a few assumptions the girl looked up. Quickly the imaginary battle disappeared as he saw a fiery determination flash through her slate eyes that reminded him of the quick burst of light that came from his spider sculptures. It made him stare at the silent kunoichi who had grown rigid and tense in the passing moment, his curiosity growing by the second.

Without a thought of the consequences, he stood and moved towards her table. He knew that he shouldn't be actively interacting with those that weren't part of his mission, especially not while he was suppose to be waiting for his partner to return. But Sasori would almost certainly be another day or two, and how could he resist those slate eyes that flashed nearly as brightly as his art? It wasn't as if he truly cared about the Akatsuki or their desires. His art and its explosive exhibition was his true priority, making his current position of sitting ideally while waiting all the more unbearable. It was no wonder that he found himself easily distracted by a strange kunoichi with such fiery eyes.

The young woman stiffened as he approached, her arm flexing a bit as if preparing for an attack. It was a look he was use to seeing through his years of hiring himself out to various anti-government groups looking for a more volatile form of protest than just rhetoric and petitioning. He could never keep from smirking at the poor fool that stared at him defiantly, eyes narrowing as they sized him up without ever realizing that they were about to be made the canvas of his artistic detonation.

It was no different with the girl that was sitting before him. Her calculating glare only made his lips turn up into a smirk. She seemed to be holding her breath, as if waiting for something as he stood by her table, her face a neutral mask of grim determination. "Yes?"

Deidara felt his smirk grow as her eyes flashed up to his forehead protector, taking in the Iwagakura stones with a deep line slashed through them. Her expression slowly changed from one of wary fear to a guarded curiosity, softening her angular features somewhat.

Sitting down across the table, he waved to the hostess who quickly hid her annoyed look and brought him a fresh cup, filling it with sake. The girl across from him said nothing, draining her glass instead as if it were nothing more than water. The hostess quickly poured her a refill, doing her best to not stare at the tense silence that sat between the two shinobi.

The kunoichi never took her eyes off him while her drink was being poured, but he really didn't expect her to. She wasn't, after all, just some weak and bashful peasant who would look away from a potential enemy out of fear and nervousness. Even if she wasn't as powerful as him, only a truly pathetic shinobi would look away from an opponent that was sitting two feet away.

The hostess made a short bow before moving to the other restaurant patrons. Deidara kept his smirk plastered on his face, watching the young woman process every detail she could glean from him before deciding to react. "So," she finally started, "You're from the Hidden Stone village."

He gave her a grunt, not bothering with the obvious statement. Instead he lifted his glass and drained it. "Which is more beautiful, a mountain or sunset?"

The girl gave him a long look, her hand shifting underneath the table. "Sunset, I guess?"

He smiled, leaning back and motioning for the hostess to return. "Leave the bottle," he said, never taking his eyes off the kunoichi in front of him. An idea had struck him as he stared at the young woman and her enticing eyes. It was something that he hadn't really thought about since being recruited by the Akatsuki, his time being absorbed by following Sasori around the continent in search of tailed beasts. There was little time for anything but work, thoughts of revenge, and the continual argument over the aesthetics of art. But now that he was practically ordered to sit and wait, he felt like he noticed for the first time the appealing way a woman's smile could morph her face into a masterpiece that lasted only a moment.

It was, of course, nothing to the extent of his own art, but he could appreciate the beauty found in a woman. The curves of their bodies, the softness of their skin, the bright sparkle of their eyes when they thought they were in love; everything about them had the potential to show the flash of raw beauty that mimicked his own fleeting and transient art. Sasori could disagree all he wanted, but true beauty, like that of a woman, lasted only for a moment. Time would only turn the young woman in front of him into a shriveled, bitter hag, not preserve her for all of eternity.

Smiling to himself, he lifted his glass again. "To the here and now."

The girl continued to stare at him, her lips parting slightly in confusion. "What?"

"Just drink," he huffed, motioning for her to lift her glass and join him in throwing caution to the wind. Who was he to let the Akatsuki control every little bit of his life? Sure he was content with his lot when he was just with Sasori. Creating war, showing of his works, and discussing the underlying principles of what made art art was a decent enough life, but it didn't change the fact that before that damned Itachi had showed up he had been perfectly able to start wars and show off his art along with whatever else he decided was worth his time. And in his experience there was nothing like a night spent with a beautiful woman to revive his inspiration.

She gave him another long look, her eye searching for something. It was frustrating the way people were so distrustful. Crossing his arms, he let out a small grunt and rolled his eyes. "It's not poisoned, you know."

Her mouth opened slightly, moving her pretty features into something slightly sultrier so long as he ignored the distrustful and slightly embarrassed shift in her gaze. Taking his own glass, he drained it with as much restraint and grace that the girl had been showing earlier. He motioned for her to join him, fighting off the impatient scowl that crossed his face just as easily as his passionate grin. Thankfully, this time the girl did as he hoped, lifting her little cup and draining it completely.

"Another?"

She remained silent for a few seconds, her eyes searching his before finally answering. "Why are you here?"

"Art," he started, filling their glasses and taking a small sip. "Art is transient, fleeting, and nothing more than a flash of true beauty. As an artist I can't help but admire the natural masterpieces that I stumble upon."

The girl looked away, this time her cheeks gaining a brief flush that only added to the brightness of her eyes. It was gone by the time she looked at him again, making him want to repeat the process and study the aesthetics of her enticing face.

"There's no art in this town."

"Hmm," he snorted, crossing his arms and giving her a crooked grin. "These people would be blind to real art even if it was right in front of him."

The thought of creating something beautiful to prove his point made Deidara's grin only grow. He could picture the brilliant light that came after detonation, the whites, yellows, oranges, and reds that would be mixed with pieces of splintered wood and shreds of clothing. It would be loud and chaotic and as fleeting as life was itself.

The girl smiled for a different reason, though, her eyes flashing towards the hostess with the kind of dislike only women can have for each other. He could see her boredom, frustration, and general discontent. He could see that she wasn't someone who liked to sit in drab barbeques of quaint towns. No, with eyes like hers he knew that she liked movement and change, perhaps even the excitement that came with danger and risks. She would be the type to die young but would be happier for it since it meant she wouldn't be living a stagnant, never changing cycle of pouring people's drinks or tending some dirty piece of land.

"At least they can appreciate the beauty of a full glass and a second bottle," she finally said, breaking the short silence as she drained the remainder of the sake and drank it as if she decided she no longer cared who he was or if he was dangerous. Normally, something like that might bother him, but his mind was focused on the growing flush on her cheeks and the glazed look that only was getting thicker.

Waving the hostess over, he quickly secured another bottle and followed her example, feeling the heat as the liquid moved down his throat. It only served to awaken his desire for something new and exciting, something worth his appreciation while he waited for Sasori. This kunoichi, he decided, would be his next canvas and would admire his skills as an artist in one form or another.

Pouring them each another glass, they both drank without a word, repeating the process until the small bottle was empty. The girl glanced towards the hostess, as if to order more sake, but Deidara was bored with what the barbeque could offer. Standing, he let his hand drift to his belt, feeling the pouch that was full of clay with a happy smile. The kunoichi, though, didn't seem to notice the motion, her unfocused eyes instead meeting his with a quick and silent suggestion that they proceed elsewhere.

"Are you staying here?" she asked as she led the way through the barbeque door, out into the clear, silent night of the small silent town.

Deidara felt an answer move to his lips, his mind full of brilliant flashes and awestruck faces when he felt her hand grab his arm and her body lean against his for support. She smiled up at him, the moonlight making her dark, drunken eyes look like the fading glow that came just a second after the initial explosion. It was all smoke and sparks, lasting only a few seconds before the world crashed down.

"I think you should come with me," she said slowly, taking him slightly off guard as his mind was abruptly turned from a violent explosion back to a more physical kind of art.

The girl smiled at him, her olive skin flushed from drink as he gave her a small grunt of consent followed by a wild smile. It was all that she needed to power ahead with careless abandon, her former caution gone only to be replaced with a singular purpose that happily matched his own desires.

They moved quickly towards the only inn the village had to offer, the girl ignoring his direction to take them to his room and instead guiding him down the short hall. He didn't object as she opened her door, stumbling inside without a thought about removing her worn sandals.

"Do you want something to drink?" she asked as she walked over to a small bag, pulling out a flask.

He gave her a large smirk. "Do you need to ask?"

She smiled back at him before rummaging through her bag. "You can drink from this," she said handing him a dented tin cup, "And I'll drink from this," she finished holding up the flask. She filled his cup full, lifting the flask in a small sign of camaraderie before putting it to her lips with the ease of practiced use.

He lifted the cup, ready to drink when he caught a brief change in her expression. It is a swirling tide of sadness and guilt mixed with anger and fear all while laced with lust and anticipation. It sent a deep surge of excitement through him, his feet moving before he could register what he was doing until he was next to the girl's firm body and mesmerizing eyes.

She looked at him, the fiery glance that cut through the dull drunkenness lighting the fuse that would spring him into action. Grabbing her waist, he threw down the cup and pulled her to him so that his lips crashed into hers. She responded immediately, her flask hitting the floor while her hands found a new hold as they snaked their way through his long hair.

A brilliant heat rushed through him with her touch, like the scalding warmth of an explosion closely followed by another. He felt himself grow rigid as she pushed herself against him, his tongue forcing her mouth open while he slid a hand down her back and over the toned crest of her butt. Lifting her, he moved quickly towards the small pad on the floor, dropping them both down while his mouth greedily dominated hers, separating only to remove his shirt so that he could feel her body respond to his better.

It was a different type of art, one of action and reaction that is just slightly more unpredicatable than his normal variety. But the change in medium didn't make him hesitate. Deidara knew how to mold flesh as well as he knew how to mold clay, and although the girl didn't know it, he was going to be sure that she would look back at this moment in pure awe and longing.


End file.
